SOULNOTE Chief Designer Kato’s Design Philosophy Series Part 1

SOULNOTE Chief Designer Kato’s. Design Philosophy Series Part 1. Many of you may not know much about SOULNOTE, here is the part one…

About the SOULNOTE brand

SOULNOTE is a high-end audio brand of CSR Corporation (Kanagawa Prefecture), which was established in 2004 by former Marantz Japan director Norinaga Nakazawa. The company employs about 50 people.

About myself

After graduating from the graduate school of Tottori University, I joined NEC in 1989, where I worked in the Audio Engineering Department.
With NEC’s withdrawal from the audio business, I was transferred to Nippon Marantz. There, I was in charge of the development of non-feedback power amplifiers for professional use and the PHILIPS LHH series.
In 2005, Nakazawa called me to join CSR, where I was in charge of SOULNOTE design. I was mainly responsible for the design of dc1.0, da1.0, sa1.0, sc1.0, SA710, SC710, etc.
The turning point came when I was appointed as Chief Engineer of SOULNOTE in 2016.
I was entrusted with everything from product planning, electrical design, structural design, sound quality management, and promotion, all in one place. At that time, Nakazawa had only one thing to say to me.
Make SOULNOTE the best audio brand in the world.
Well, “number one in the world” was Nakazawa’s favorite phrase, and while it may seem like a wild idea, I had an idea to make it happen. We would properly explain the reasons for the “discrepancy between specifications and sound quality,” which is the biggest mystery in the audio world, achieve unprecedented sound quality using methods that other manufacturers would not (or could not) use, and present it to the world. If we could do that, I really thought we could turn the world’s perception of value upside down. I understood the reason for the discrepancy between specs and sound quality, and that is the basis of SOULNOTE’s current design philosophy. And now I have the environment to make it happen.
All that remains is to do it.
2021. My position as SOULNOTE Chief Engineer will not change after Kazuyoshi Takanashi is appointed President of CSR. At the end of the year, the S-3R, X-3, and Z-3 were selected as the reference system for the listening room of StereoSound magazine, the most prestigious magazine in Japan, as a result of SOULNOTE’s unprecedented method and sound quality being highly evaluated.
The year is 2022. For a further leap forward, SOULNOTE will challenge a full-scale entry into Europe, starting with the Munich High End Show in 2022.
Here is a timeline of the models we have developed since I took over as Chief Engineer.
2016 A-1, C-1, E-1, A-0
2017 D-1, A-2, E-2
2018 D-2, D-1N
2019 S-3
2020 S-3ver2, P-3
2021 ZEUS (D-3, Z-3, X-3, RCC-1), S-3 Ref.